Nicandri Nature Center - Part 2

I was touring the new nature center on the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Massena, New York (see also Part 1, posted yesterday). I fondly remembered this giant hollow log from my previous visit. It was made of concrete but looked entirely real:

I walked up to it and entered, this time knowing what to expect. When someone enters, a red light comes on and these imitation bats begin chirping. I saw a woman scream the last time:

All along the wall of this room was a diorama with birds and mammals common to the area:

This Wild Turkey was one of the most realistic and one of the most commonly seen:

 A Cottontail Rabbit and Red Fox:

The last time I was at the nature center, their bees had not yet arrived. But they had taken up residence over the summer and built a large, thriving colony. They were crowded and difficult to see, though, but that was solved by the lighted, enlarging camera which could be positioned wherever you wanted a better view:

And whatever you focused it on was displayed, giant sized, on the adjacent screen:

Honeybees are an important part of our natural world and of our agriculture:

A third room contained a Blandings Turtle, a familiar species to me because I had one as a boy. If I had lived within bicycling range of a place like this when I was young, I'd have been there every day and made a pest of myself:

They also had a Wood Turtle, a species I've rescued from the roads several times around here:

I'd seen most everything, so I thanked the naturalist and exited to the first, main room on my way out:

Outdoors, I saw that they had planted a garden which was designed specifically for the bees:

It doesn't look like it here, but many of those plants were still flowering, even this late in the year: